The 10th Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, 11‐13 July
2012
Discussant notes: (dis) placing the social in corporate social responsibility: Accounting for
environmental refugees
General
Purpose: This paper will consider the need for acknowledged corporate accountability for
causes attributed to organisational activity which contribute to the creation of environmental
refugees.
Design/ Methodology/ Approach: literature review
Findings: … despite the consequences of climate change, the threats of sea level rise …
corporate accounting discourse is yet to adequately accommodate environmental refugees.
Originality/ Value: Recent accountability literature has been focusing … on process rather
than on … the purpose of being accountable.
Commentary
I am convinced that there is a place for an accounting paper on the topic of the long term questions
surrounding sustainability issues and the instance of environmental refugees but it needs to be very
carefully motivated and argued. I don’t think the paper is quite achieving its aims at present.
There is a recurrent problem in motivating the paper in terms of CSR – why it should be a corporate
responsibility – remains equivocal in the paper. It is clearly a global economic and political issue but
it’s much less clear whether it’s a corporate one. In this respect the comparison with Hines classic
paper is instructive but not developed in the paper. Here Hines is talking – as I understand it – about
the things organizations are able to treat as ‘externalities’. But these are things which can be ‘pretty
clearly’ linked to the effects of their operations – such as pollution. In the case of environmental
reporting GHGs can be measured in some approximate way [not without some uncertainty] but the
cumulative impact of a single org on sea level rise and weather conditions cannot!
This is a problem that the authors seem to recognise but then appear to side step – not all that
neatly. So while I completely agree it’s a terribly important question at the global and
intergovernmental/NGO level. I don’t see how the problem of environmental refugees can be
brought in a meaningful way into corporate reporting.
1. In motivating the paper the authors refer to
… environmental refugees as future generations embedded in the notion of sustainability,
provide challenges for accountability and disclosure discourses (p.3).
But surely and more importantly one would hope humanitarian assistance/effort.
There is a lack of agreement as to the meaning ascribed to accountability within the
accounting literature (p.3).
And more importantly in the real world literature and policy setting arenas.
… some corporations disclose displacement due to such activities as mining, the impact of
corporate activity on the level of greenhouse gas (GHG)1 and subsequently the phenomena
of ‘global warming’ and sea level rise resulting in environmental refugees is absent (p.4,
emphasis added).
But this is not surprising!
2. Discussion of accountability
…as Roberts (2009, p.968) argues, the ideals of transparency are unattainable and, …, at
worse, does violence to those one is accountable (sic). …Therefore, despite the increase in
social and environmental accounting discourses it may be possible that “no accounting can
ever help deliver sustainability, equality or justice” (Grey and Schaltegger, 2011, p.10) (p.5,
emphasis added).
NB this is the most critical point made so far! I completely agree with these quotes and they apply
especially strongly to the area of environmental refugees
3. The references to ‘science are rather strangely general
4. environmental refugees
While the authors acknowledge the contested meaning of the term environmental refugee
and that the ambiguity in nomenclature has both political and social consequences2; this
paper specifically focuses on discourse, recognition and accountability (p.6, emphasis
added).
Wow??? The imprecision is produced, at least partly, by the difficulty of being precise. The lack of
certainty as to why people have been displaced and the imprecision of climate science and
associated econ and other theory is not going to be overcome any time soon.
5. sustainability
Intergenerational equity is linked to sustainability ideology
But at base it is ideology – it can’t be based on science alone but must be grounded in ethics and a
moral discourse..
1
Greenhouse gas is: carbon dioxide; or methane; or nitrous oxide; or sulphur hexafluoride; or a
hydrofluorocarbon; or a perfluorocarbon (NGER Australian Government 2007).
2
e.g. a ‘refugee’ has legal rights according to the United Nation’s 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees
6. Regulation
Despite individual motivations, many corporate management may produce their own
voluntary standards and disclosures in order to minimise or benchmark standards for future
regulation.
But how can this work for climate change wher the linkages are so tenuous.
The public, media and other external stakeholders all play a role in driving the disclosure of
social responsibility (Neu et al. 1998) and since environmental refugees are not yet
prominent in the discourse of social responsibility, corporations will not disclose or
recognise this vulnerable group (p.11, emphasis added).
But in this case it’s hard to see it as a corporate issue.
The above remark is linked with a brief discussion of Hines. Is this a reasonable inter of Hines? I
don’t think it is.
7. A Human Rights Approach. This section ends with the remark below:
The themes of science; regulation and control; and human rights, have provided a starting
point for a discussion of accounting for environmental refugees. The critique of extant
accountability frameworks has demonstrated that while there is a link between corporate
activity and environmental refugees, this connection is blurred (p.14, emphasis added).
And there is no obvious way of making this a reporting issue beyond GHG emissions.
8. Discussion
The authors note in the section
… voluntary reporting standards as a legitimating activity. Despite these criticisms voluntary
reporting has grown considerably. In 2008 45% of corporations were reporting against their
corporate responsibility, this increased to 57% in 2011 (KPMG 2011). The main drivers for
this increase were reputation, brand, ethical considerations, motivation, innovation and risk
management (KPMG 2011). (p.14, emphasis added).
Surely the end of this para does not follow from the beginning! – or are these activities truly just
about legitimation.
The following text follows a quote from Unerman about the greenwash nature of much
responsibility disclosure reporting practice. It’s a clear challenge to Unerman and others ideas.
Despite these criticisms, multiple tools and frameworks are available to assist corporations
in social responsibility disclosures including support for sustainable development concepts,
action against climate change, human rights, social accounting and accountability. Both
the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the AccountAbility Institute (AccountAbility) have
led the way in developing international voluntary standards (Adams 2004). The following
section discusses these as well as the International Standardization Organizations (ISO) as
reporting opportunities for the disclosure of corporate impacts in terms of a group of future
stakeholders, environmental refugees … (p.15, emphasis added).
Environmental refugees could and should, however are yet to, be considered within the
GRI’s representation of a ‘vulnerable group’. (p.17).
But again this could surely not be done at a corporate level of analysis/reporting.
NB: Where is the concern for refugees in these last 2 sections of the discussion? It seems to
disappear.
9. Future Direction
The findings of this paper suggest that, despite the consequences of climate change, the
threats of sea level rise and the notions of sustainability, there appears to be an evident
deficiency or oversight within extant accounting practices, including frameworks and
disclosures, to accommodate, account for and be accountable to environmental refugees
(p.18, emphasis added).
While there may have been a ‘deficiency or oversight’ it may be that accounting for environmental
refugees will not work at the corporate level.
… instead of directing responsibility toward multinational corporations, states or the high
emitters, aim is to make visible the issues and growing concerns of the future generations
and environmental refugees (p.18, emphasis added).
But what about John Roberts’ thesis of intelligent accountability and the problems of reporting
without overwhelming the user?
Again it is important to make clear that the subject and the literature is largely not my area so I’m
happy to be corrected and hope to give no offence if some of my comments have been ill judged.